Startup Weekend: A whirlwind 54 hours where engineers, designers and ideas people collaborate and possibly build new companies. Besides forming groups that will put their heads together for the weekend, teams will also come up with a business model, validate their ideas and then pitch their ideas to a panel of judges.

Hong Kong has had seven Startup Weekends so far, spawning successful homegrown companies such as mobile logistics startup Aftership. Called ‘Awesomeship’ at the time, Aftership came together at a 2011 Startup Weekend – won the competition and raised a US $1 million Series A round from IDC-Accel in 2014. Startup Weekends are clearly a great problem-solving platform for incoming entrepreneurs, but why aren’t there more events geared towards specific problems?

To address this, Allison Baum of Fresco Capital Advisors has brought ‘Startup Weekend: EDU’ to Hong Kong. “Through my experience with General Assembly, I’ve heard a lot of people complain about the education system here – so I was excited to have the opportunity to create productive conversation around how we can use startup methodology and technology to solve problems people have been complaining about for a long time,” she said.

[Read more…]